For a million flames saw I , Bleeding in... Dr Raja David Bhasker

A million flames saw I
Bleeding in my mothers eye
On my grave, o’er our graves
On Eritrea’s flaming martyrs Day

Knelt with intense prayers she
With wrinkled hands and wrinkled hate
Searched for me; Reached for me
Bursting aside the buried rubbles of fate

Broke! The realm of silent time
Answering the last riddle of time
‘For mortals can touch immortals
When moving prayers match eternals’

Suddenly bright, transported was I
Celestially under my mothers eye
Cozily swaddled lovingly familiar
Beneath my mothers ‘Natsela’ of love

She …
Clasped me; covered me;
Cuddled me; cradled me;
Carried me proudly high
Marching past the freedom flagged sky

Saw I…
Proud freedom fluttering high
Freedom colors splashed in the sky
Reds, Yellows, Blues and Greens
Freedom, Freedom, Freedom dreams

Saw I…
Our generations, ten thousand generations
In prophetic flashes of seers light
Brothers, Sisters, Mothers, fathers
Their Futures futures becoming bright

Then…
From beneath her comforting ‘Natsela’ saw I
Another enlightened with six under her eye
‘Time!’ they said and dusk it was
Thought flaming days would always last

A strong breed of martyrs were they
Only their mother and celestial dare say
Questioned heavens moved Hells
Only the flaming truth can ever tell

For…
We drank! We drank!
The decades crush
Of blood, sweat and blinding dust
To redeem our land off the occupational lust

Strangely fearless...
We rushed! We rushed!
Into the deaths crush
When… an alien shrapnel burst my brain
I froze death… murmuring my mothers name

My mother screamed, Freedom screamed…
Shaken…
My shrill voiceless voice rose high
Awakening all others nearby
For a million flames saw I
Still bleeding in my mothers eye

PS: …… 20 June 2005……..

Garden of Spirits with mothers glowed
Warning the other with darkness untold
Purging the damp air with martyrdom hymns
Enraptured lay I stilled, under the melting Junes moon

Now with the ‘Natsela’ of love nestled in my soul
My mother Eritrea, I’ll ever dearly hold

A Review:
This poem is a sequel to the poem ‘The Testament of Times’ which was published in the ‘Eritrean Profile’ on 30 July 2005.
The poem narrates the author’s inner experience as he watches the glowing ‘Natsela’ clad mothers keeping a faithful watch over their loved ones throughout the remembrance night.
Exposed to the misty kaleidoscopic air, he swears he saw the mothers reaching out to their loved ones and the martyrs were reborn. Penned in a modernist and cubist style the poem peeps momentarily through the veil of life and death. The poet’s total experience was that "he saw and was sawn"